It's amazing what God's love can do
The girl, who is only five and blind, is a great example of what God's love can do. Music is indeed an amazing gift from God and so is this girl.
Quote of the day
"We are living in an era where people believe in Christ, but not in his Church. They want the king, but not the kingdom; they want to believe without belonging; they want the faith, but not the faithful. But for the committed Catholic, the answer to that is, 'no can do.' Jesus and the Church are one."
- Archbishop Timothy Dolan, paying a visit to the other side of the country.
Good old non-bias media gone.
I agree with Deacon Greg’s post about the media’s bias reporting. I feel the same way. The media doesn’t realize that any good religious news can serve as an inspiration to many people who are struggling in their life and faith right now especially during this difficult times.
Continue>>>One of the biggest surprises of Pope Benedict's historic trip to the United Kingdom may be how few people realize that it was, in fact, historic.
Sunday night, I was chatting by phone with my father-in-law in Maryland. I told him I'd been busy with the papal coverage all weekend.
"Didn't seem like much happened," he said.
"Really?," I replied. "He was the first pope to visit the Church of England's Westminster Abbey. He stood there with the Archbishop of Canterbury, side by side, as they both pronounced the final blessing and made the sign of the cross together."
"He did that?" My father-in-law sounded genuinely surprised.
"He went to the hall where Thomas More was sentenced to death and delivered a speech about religion to the civil leaders of Great Britain."
"He did?"
"And he took part in his first beatification: Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism."
I could almost hear him scratching his bald head. "How come nobody said anything about that?"
Now, my father-in-law is a pretty smart guy, and what you might consider an observant Catholic. He attends mass every morning. He keeps up on current events. Now retired from the FDA, he regularly checks in with the Washington Post, USA TODAY, MSNBC and CNN. But he was baffled that this stuff I was telling him wasn't on the nightly news.
"All we saw down here," he explained, "was that he met with sex abuse victims."
I started to wonder what sort of coverage the trip had received. After I hung up the phone, I searched through several newspaper websites. I clicked on the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe. Nothing, nothing, nothing. None of them mentioned on their home page the pope's just-completed trip.
When I got to work on Monday, I searched CNN Newsource, which provides newsfeeds to my show, ";Currents," as well as to countless other news programs around the country. I found a grand total of one item, running about a minute long, slugged "Anti-Pope Demonstrations."
That was it.
Based on my conversation with my father-in-law, you could be forgiven for thinking that the pope made the trip just to meet with victims of sex abuse -- and that a lot of Britons were ticked off about it.
Now, I know: it's tempting to argue that it was a conspiracy of media bias. But I think there's something sadder and less sinister at work: it's the economy, stupid. The religion beat, in most places, just doesn't exist anymore. (Ironic, considering that a recent report says it's something that people crave.) But it's one of the first things to be cut in a budget crunch. In television news, the days when CNN had a Delia Gallagher or ABC had a Peggy Wehmeyer are long gone. It's worse at newspapers, many of which are on life support, gasping for air. Truly historic moments, potentially earth-shifting events, like the pope's trip to the UK, are going under-reported, or un-reported, or mis-reported. They get coverage, but not necessarily from a regular reporter, who understands the nuances of the beat. As a result, they happen in a void, without any real context beyond the hot-button issues of sex or violence or protest. And isn't it sad: that seems to be all that we hear about religion -- any religion -- in the media these days.
Call me old school, but there's something wrong here.
If my father-in-law, a fairly well-informed guy in the pews, didn't know what he didn't know, I have to wonder: how many others in the pews are also being left in the dark?
Stephen Colbert's video response on Stephen Hawking's "God does not exist"
Here is the must watch video:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| March to Keep Fear Alive | ||||
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Our Lady of Sorrows - a touching prayer
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?
Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
she beheld her tender Child
All with bloody scourges rent.
For the sins of His own nation,
saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.
O sweet Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord.
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ, my Lord.
- Stabat Mater
[via Deacon's Bench] Continue>>>
The Hail Mary of a Protestant
You probably have heard or read this beautiful and inspiring story. Me too, so many times already, and loved it so much. So, since it's Our Lady's birthday today, I've decided to post it here in her honor.
(A true story)
A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer 'Hail Mary.' He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day. 'Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,' he said to his mother one day.
'Never again say it,' answered the mother. 'It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.' From that day on the little boy discontinued his daily 'Hail Mary' and gave him more time to reading the Bible instead.
One day, while reading the Gospel, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady. Full of joy, the little boy ran to his mother and said: 'Mommy, I have found the 'Hail Mary' in the Bible which says: 'Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.' Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?'
On another occasion he found that beautiful Salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary and the wonderful canticle MAGNIFICENT in which Mary foretold that 'the generations would call her blessed.'
He said no more about it to his mother but started to recite the 'Hail Mary' every day as before. He felt pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, our Savior.
When he was fourteen, he one day heard a discussion on Our Lady among the members of his family. Every one said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman. The boy, after listening to their erroneous reasoning could not bear it any longer, and full of indignation, he interrupted them, saying:
'Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONGST WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God. There is no higher dignity to which a creature can be raised. The Gospel says that the generations will proclaim her blessed and you are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.'
So deep was the impression which the boy's talk had made that his mother many times cried out sorrowfully: “Oh my God?” I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of Popes!' And indeed, not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of both Protestantism and Catholicism, the boy found the latter to be the only true religion and embraced it and became one of its most ardent apostles.
Some time after his conversion, he met his married sister who rebuked him and said indignantly: 'You little know how much I love my children. Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce his heart with a dagger than allow him to embrace the religion of the Popes!'
Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would change her ways, just as St. Paul did on his way to Damascus. It so happened that one of her sons fell dangerously ill and the doctors gave up hope of recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying: 'My dear sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, do what I ask you to do. Follow me, let us pray one 'Hail Mary' and promise God that, if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it no matter what the sacrifices may be.'
His sister was somewhat reluctant at the beginning, but as she wished for her son's recovery, she accepted her brother's proposal and recited the 'Hail Mary' together with him. The next day her son was completely cured. The mother fulfilled her promise and she studied the Catholic doctrine. After long preparation she received Baptism together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being an apostle to her.
The story was related during a sermon given by the Rev. Fr. Tuckwell. 'Brethren,' he went on and said, 'the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God.
He is the priest who is speaking to you now!
What I am I owe to Our Lady. You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady and never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer, 'Hail Mary', and your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and 'against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail.'
Today is the birthday of the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Blessed Virgin Mary
give your people help and strength from heaven.
The birth of the Virgin Mary's Son was the dawn of our salvation.
May this celebration of her birthday
bring us closer to lasting peace.
Grant this though our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
- Collect for the Feast of the Birth of Mary, September 8.
September 8: The Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary (16 B.C.). Mary was born fifteen years, three months and seventeen days before the birth of Jesus. She was born in a house in which, fourteen years, six months and seventeen days later, the great Angel Gabriel, sent by God, would come and kneel before her and with bowed head say: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee"
Mary was three years, two months and thirteen days old when she was presented by her parents to God in the Temple. She was just fourteen years old when she was espoused to Joseph. She was fourteen years, four months and fifteen days old when her espousals to Saint Joseph were solemnized. She was in her forty-eighth year when Our Lord died and rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, in the year 33. And Mary was seventy-two years old when she herself died, and was three days later assumed into Heaven, in the year 58.
The Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated in the Church at least since the 8th Century. The Church's calendar observes the birthdays of only two saints: Saint John the Baptist (June 24), and Mary, Mother of Jesus.
John the Baptist is considered especially sanctified even before his birth. His birth to Elizabeth and Zachariah is foretold in the first chapter of Luke, and it is also recorded (Lk 1:41) that Elizabeth felt the infant John "leap in her womb" when Mary approached her soon after the Annunciation.
The birth of Mary was also miraculous. She was conceived without sin as a special grace because God had selected her to become the mother of His Son (the feast of her Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8). The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, though generally believed throughout the Church for many centuries, was formally declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854.
There is nothing contained in Scripture about the birth of Mary or her parentage, though Joseph's lineage is given in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, appear in the apocryphal "Gospel of James", a book dating from the 2nd Century AD, not part of the authentic canon of Scripture. According to this account, Joachim and Anna were also beyond the years of child-bearing, but prayed and fasted that God would grant their desire for a child.
According to one tradition, the house in which Mary was born in Nazareth is the same one in which the Annunciation took place. By another tradition, the Annunciation site is beneath the Crusader church of Saint Anna in Jerusalem, under a 3rd Century oratory known as the "Gate of Mary".
In celebrating the nativity of Mary, Christians anticipate the Incarnation and birth of her Divine Son, and give honor to the mother of Our Lord and Savior. Continue>>>
Quote of the day
"I fear the story of this animosity will be taken to be the story of the real America. It's not. America was not built on hatred, but on love. This is not the real America. When you attack one religion, you attack them all."
- Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, September 7, 2010. [His remarks came after an interfaith meeting to discuss anti-Muslim sentiment in America.]
2010 Annual SCRC convention in Anaheim, California
2011 Annual SCRC Charismatic Renewal Convention - September 3,4,5 at the Anaheim Convention Center, close to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. For information for the next year's convention, check here and here.
All the speakers and musicians were great! Like Fr. Stan Fortuna....
Sr. Linda Koontz
Fr. Jim Nisbet
John Michael Talbot
There were exhibits of great saints and their history.
The Adoration Room
We prayed for all our soldiers.
Lots of religious items for sale.
Not sure if the big Carmelite doll was for sale.
This was during the Saturday Healing Mass with Fr. Pat Crowley
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